1'jo Voyage of the Novara. 



with St. Paul, two human beings were descried on the shore, 

 waving in the air a piece of canvas fastened on poles, who 

 apparently were anxious to convey to the expedition their 

 desire to communicate with their ships. It was supposed 

 these were shipwrecked mariners, stranded on this dangerous 

 coast, who regarded the arrival of the Lion as an unexpected 

 means of rescue. To save these fellow-creatures from so 

 desperate a position, the Captain of the Lion declared to be a 

 pleasing duty assigned by Providence, and rejoiced to have 

 been selected as the instrument of their deliverance. When, 

 however, the boat of the British man-of-war, which was 

 despatched to take off the castaways and bring them on board 

 ship, had landed on the island, the crew speedily discovered 

 the singular delusion which all had laboured under. The 

 men, whom motives of humanity had intended to rescue from 

 this inhospitable place, turned out to be anything but in- 

 voluntary residents on the island, being seal-hunters, who for 

 five months had dwelt here, and purposed remaining ten 

 months longer, with the intention of completing a cargo of 

 ^5,000 seal-skins, for which at that time there was a very con- 

 siderable and lucrative demand in the Chinese markets,* and 



* " It seems," says Lord Macartney, " tliat tlie Chinese possess remarkable skill 

 in the dressing of seal-sldns, by wliich they remove the long coarse hair, so as to 

 leave merely the soft tender skin, and simultaneously manage to render the liide 

 tliin and phant. Only the prospect of some such enormous profit could at axij time 

 induce human beings to pass fifteen months at a stretch on so ungcnial a spot, which, 

 moreover, their occupation must render yet more loathsome. They Idlled the seals 

 as they basked in the sun on the rocks along the shore, and around tlie broad 

 natui'al rock basius. As only the skins were of any value to tliem, they left the flayed 



